


got to roll me

by Lake (beyond_belief)



Category: Ocean's Eleven Trilogy (Movies)
Genre: M/M, Soul Bond, offbeat soulbonds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:07:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22594537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beyond_belief/pseuds/Lake
Summary: Danny and Rusty's first meeting. And their strange soulbond.
Relationships: Danny Ocean/Rusty Ryan
Comments: 4
Kudos: 156
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 5





	got to roll me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [reeby10](https://archiveofourown.org/users/reeby10/gifts).



Danny's standing next to the elevator at the Sands, waiting for Reuben, when the world suddenly tastes like pineapple. He works his jaw for a moment, confused at the flavor on his tongue - he had a Jack and Coke earlier, nothing fruity. Then the elevator opens and Reuben steps out, in his baby blue suit with the baby blue shirt. Danny's sure no one else but Reuben could wear that combination. Behind him is a lanky guy in a polo with floppy blond hair, holding an almost empty hurricane glass in one hand and a wedge of pineapple in the other. There's a tiny flamingo embroidered on his shirt. 

"Danny, Rusty. Rusty, Danny," Reuben says. He gestures between them with his walking stick. Rusty makes a little salute with the glass.

"Rusty," Danny says. To Reuben he says, "He looks like he's barely old enough to drink."

"You're barely old enough to drink," Reuben counters, rotating a cigar into the little holder he's got as they follow him towards the lobby of the hotel.

That's a bald-faced lie; Danny is twenty-eight. 

Rusty takes a bite of the pineapple wedge and Danny's mouth is again flooded with the taste. Nothing like this has ever happened to him before - it's jarring. He's heard of strange connections like this - clicks, he heard somebody call it once - happening to other people, but not specifically tasting what someone else is eating. He swallows against the flavor and Rusty grins at him. 

"Sit," Reuben says, before Danny can worry about it any further, and points at a pair of chairs across from the one he's settling into. Danny and Rusty sit down.

Reuben knows a guy who's recently come into possession of several priceless _objets d'art_ , and this guy is apparently not at all the sort of person who should have in his possession anything that could be remotely labeled as _priceless_. Reuben knows another guy who should be the person to take custody of such artwork, so that it might be delivered into yet another set of hands. And there's a large sum of money involved in the process, of course. 

"Do you think you gentlemen could facilitate this for me?" Reuben asks, once everything has been explained. 

Rusty's sprawled out now in the chair, still holding the hurricane glass; he looks over at Danny. "That sounds all right," he says. 

"We can do that for you no problem," Danny adds. Already he can feel a series of plans starting to unspool in his mind. He looks over at Rusty, who's got the sort of expression on his face that would suggest there are also plans developing in his. "No problem."

*

"What's with the pineapple?" he asks, when Reuben's left them to meet up with his regular poker group. 

Rusty's tipping the last drops from the glass into his mouth. Strawberry. Rum. Danny works his jaw again for a second, still baffled, then licks his lips. He sees Rusty's gaze follow the movement for a second. Then Rusty asks, "What about it?"

"I think I can taste what you eat." Danny barely believes what he's saying, even as he's saying it. "The pineapple slice. That monstrosity of a strawberry daiquiri."

Rusty scoffs, then laughs. "That's - well -"

"Yeah."

"I need a snack, so let's go try something else," Rusty suggests. "And figure out how to obtain these watches while we're at it."

" _Watches_ ," Danny groans, because that hadn't been what he was expecting when Reuben said _art_.

"Apparently this sort of wristwatch is quite valuable these days." Rusty unfolds his lean frame from the chair and stands up, and Danny follows suit. "Bar?"

"Only about six of them in this place."

They grab stools at the first bar to have little bowls of pretzels and salted peanuts. Danny watches Rusty curl his finger over the lip of one of the bowls and slide it in close, then toss a pretzel into his mouth. A second later, the taste of salt is rolling over Danny's tongue. Rusty raises an eyebrow. Danny says, "That too."

"Huh."

The bartender comes over. Danny orders a whiskey, and the smoky flavor of it is enough to wash away the echo of salt, even as Rusty keeps eating. On napkins, they sketch out various ideas for the B&E, based on the battered blueprint Reuben handed over. Rusty gets an orange juice, then a screwdriver. Danny decides he should just resign himself to fate at that point, and gets a screwdriver as well.

*

It's not so much getting used to it as it is no longer being surprised when he gets an unexpected taste in his mouth thirty seconds before Rusty appears in his field of vision. Rusty's always snacking on something - little things he picks up on the go and eats almost unconsciously as he does whatever else it is he's doing. And they're not in the same place on a regular basis, crossing paths mostly when Reuben's got some errand he needs them to run together, or there's a worthwhile job to pull. Rusty's turned out to be pretty good with building schematics and reading blueprints and looking at an electrical box and figuring out which wires go to what elevator.

"You know, you haven't eaten anything I can't stand yet," Danny says one April night, about six months after Reuben first introduced them, as they sit in a van parked a few blocks down from a very posh San Diego jewelry store. The van has a fake carpet-cleaning business logo on the side. Danny's behind the wheel, with Rusty in the passenger seat, and Rusty's wearing all black with a ski mask tufted up on top of his head. Inside the jewelry store is a very expensive pair of emerald cufflinks. They already have a fence lined up. 

"That's good." Most of Rusty's attention seems focused on the schematic he's holding unfolded on his lap, but he's also chewing on Skittles that he pours out of a bag in the cupholder, two or three at a time into his palm. 

"You're not going to start eating awful things just because I said that, right?"

Rusty looks up from the schematic.

"All right, good, glad we discussed," Danny says, grinning. 

Rusty holds out the Skittles bag and shakes it in offer, then pours some into Danny's cupped hand. "Okay, I'm going in," he says, and tugs the mask down over his face. The click of the door seems to echo down the street as he opens it, so Danny slouches a little in his seat. Over the top of the steering wheel, he watches Rusty slip down the sidewalk, close to the brick walls of buildings.

Rusty pauses briefly, then Danny tastes mint. It clashes with the fruitiness of the Skittles. He shakes his head and slouches down further.

All they're doing is casing the joint tonight. There's a Sherwin-Williams next door that he knows Rusty is planning on gaining entry to first, before he starts checking shared walls and vents. Danny glances at the clock in the dash, then rubs his tongue against the roof of his mouth for a second, annoyed at the flavor of Rusty's stupid breathmint. Of all the clicks to have with someone, and it doesn't even seem to go both ways. He wonders if Rusty's had it happen to him with other people. Maybe it isn't Rusty's first and that's why he seemed so unbothered. Danny keeps an eye on the dim street, and realizes he'd never even _asked_.

He could ask. 

The buildings stay dark and silent. Fifteen minutes later, he recognizes the shape of Rusty coming back up the sidewalk, then ducking around the van and climbing in the passenger side. A wave of cooler air comes with him. "We're good," he says, smiling as he pulls off the ski mask. Danny starts the engine.

*

They're sitting in an all-night diner that offers endless coffee refills, and Rusty's sketching out plans on napkins with a pen that he occasionally stabs through the thin paper. "Could go this way, or this way," he says, pointing at the assortment of squares and hatch marks. Danny figures it doesn't mean much to an outsider, but he gets it: walls, windows, doors. The dashes are the vents.

He figures he might also just get it because it's Rusty, and they've come to understand each other's shorthand easily, smoother than Danny's ever understood anyone else. 

"The alarm system, eh," Rusty continues, making an _either or_ sort of gesture. 

"They could do with an upgrade."

Rusty points the pen at him, expression brightening. "Could use the insurance payout to get a system that actually connects to somewhere."

Danny laughs into his coffee before he takes another sip.

"You know, I don't really like robbing jewelry stores," Rusty says. He leans against the back of the booth and folds his arms over his chest, fixing Danny with an even expression. "You ever rob a bank?"

Danny's mid-swallow, and before he can answer, Rusty says, "Nah, you never robbed a bank."

"I thought about robbing a bank."

"Steal from the rich and give to the poor?"

"Something like that."

Rusty grins, then shakes his head at the waitress when she comes around with the coffee pot again. He folds up his sketched-upon napkins and tucks them into his jacket pocket. 

For a second, Danny thinks he tastes salt. He sets his cup down. "You want to get out of here?" he asks Rusty, pulling out his wallet and tossing a couple bills on the table. "Let's get out of here."

*

Rusty takes his coffee with sugar, a fact Danny's now well-acquainted with, and is occasionally annoyed by when he tastes it unwillingly. He finds the sweetness is less of a problem when they're attempting to kiss, undo buttons, and walk in the direction of the hotel room bed all at the same time. "Wait, let me just…" Rusty breathes, hot against the side of Danny's face, with his hands trapped between their bodies as he tries to get at the buckle of Danny's belt.

The bed is very close now. "In a minute," Danny says, and angles Rusty down onto it. Rusty grins widely at him as he does, gripping Danny's shirt so that they both go down. 

"You know, I don't even know where you're from," Rusty says in a conversational tone, as Danny unbuckles Rusty's slim leather belt and pushes his polo shirt - black this time, of course - up his lean torso. A thin line of hair runs from his bellybutton down to disappear into his slacks. 

Danny traces it with his thumb. "Jersey," he says, his brain catching up to the question. 

"I should have figured that one out." Rusty shimmies backwards, clearly getting to a more stable part of the mattress than the edge they were too close to, and yanks Danny along after him to kneel between his knees. 

"Your hair's a fucking mess from that mask," Danny says. Rusty laughs and mouths at his neck, hands sliding to Danny's waistband again. Danny can feel the heat of Rusty's erection rubbing against his thigh and rolls his his hips, pressing downward. 

"This -" Rusty groans, but stops whatever it is he's about to say; probably that this is a bad idea. 

"Yeah," Danny says, then slides down the bed, taking Rusty's open slacks with him as he goes.

*

Rusty's asleep when Danny calls down for room service. It's barely still breakfast - he gets them each an omelette, with potatoes. And coffee.

When it arrives, he pours a cup before doing anything else, and stands next to the bathroom door drinking it, looking at the line of Rusty's back against the white sheets of the bed. Then Rusty pushes himself up on his elbows, blinking against the sunlight that's managed to get around the edge of the curtain, looking confused. "You're drinking your coffee black," he says, his expression shifting to one of outrage. 

"Yes," Danny says, amused.

Rusty scowls. "I can taste it."

"Well, now you know what my life's been like for the last six months." Danny takes another sip just to watch Rusty's face, then points at the tray. "You can fix your own cup."

"Come back to bed."

"Omelettes are getting cold," Danny replies, but he gets back in the bed.

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to get a lot more Not Safe For Work, but my brain has not been cooperating.


End file.
